NBC South Florida reporter Marissa Bagg was surprised to see police standing outside her house on a quiet street in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thursday.
But not as surprised as she was minutes later to see officers leading away a man in handcuffs who was wanted for robbery and had been hiding in her garden.
At home on a lunch break with her husband, father-in-law and 19-month-old daughter, Bagg began filming the scene on her cellphone and captured the moment an officer appeared on her driveway with his gun drawn.
“We should probably not go outside,” she is heard saying in the video.
Then another officer pulled up with a police dog.
Officers and the dog searched the backyard and two minutes later were leading away a man in handcuffs, who had been hiding at the side of the house near a shed.
“Holy crap, you guys got him,” Eshel says.
“I did not know what to think at the time,” Bagg told NBC South Florida. “I’m accustomed to telling stories, we do it every day, but certainly it’s unusual to become a witness to a possible crime.”
Fort Lauderdale Police told NBC South Florida that the unnamed suspect robbed a local deli about half a mile away shortly before he was apprehended. NBC South Florida showed surveillance video from the store, in which the suspect enters at about 11:30 a.m, before allegedly forcing the clerk to hand over money.
Police said there were no injuries in the incident.